Scientists decry attacks by skeptics of climate change

WALNUT CREEK ---- A few years ago, Ben Santer, a climate
scientist with Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in Washington,
answered a 10 p.m. doorbell ring at his home. After opening the
door, he found a dead rat on the doorstep and a man in a yellow
Hummer speeding away and shouting curses.

Santer shared this story recently before a congressional
committee examining the increasing harassment of climate
scientists, and the state of climate science.

After the online posting in November of 1,073 stolen e-mails
from climate scientists, including some from Santer, the threats
took a more ominous turn, Santer told members of the Select
Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, led by Rep.
Edward Markey, D-Mass. Skeptics of climate change have dubbed the
e-mail incident "Climategate."

"The nature of these e-mail threats has been of more concern,"
Santer said. "I've worried about the security and safety of my
family."

In the heated debate over global warming's cause and ---- to a
diminishing extent ---- its existence, the stolen e-mails ratcheted
up the rhetoric. And though skeptics of human-induced climate
change have tried to use the e-mails to discredit established
science and to derail policies such as the regulation of carbon
dioxide emissions or cap-and-trade initiatives, scientists are
fighting back.

They penned a consensus letter this month, testified before
congressional committees to explain why they're certain human
activity is warming the world, and they're trumpeting what they say
is the growing harassment of climate change researchers.

In the written version of his testimony, Santer mentioned
concerns "about my own physical safety when I give public
lectures."

Santer is accompanied by bodyguards at some conferences, Stephen
Schneider, a prominent climate scientist with Stanford University,
said this month. Santer and the lab declined to discuss details
about security for him, saying it would be inappropriate to do so.
Schneider, who testified at the congressional hearing, told the
committee he has a history of fielding abusive e-mails. A typical
one, he said, accuses him of being a "Communist dupe for the United
Nations," and states, "You're a traitor and should be hung.'"

The threats escalated after the publication of the hacked
e-mails from the University of East Anglia in England. On blogs,
talk shows and other forums, people heatedly discussed the content
of certain e-mails, and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., has requested a
criminal investigation of 17 climate scientists, including Santer
and Schneider, whose e-mails were among those stolen. Inhofe
believes human-induced global warming is a hoax and that there is
no scientific consensus on the matter.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., also wrote the head of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which produces reports
widely regarded as the most authoritative assessments on climate
change, requesting the 17 scientists be banned from contributing to
the panel's next report.

Those hacked e-mails revealed some climate scientists involved
in a pattern of stonewalling, discussing ways to conceal data that
didn't agree with their findings, and deriding skeptics of global
warming. In one e-mail, Santer wrote when he next encountered a
certain climate skeptic at a scientific meeting, "I'll be tempted
to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted."